Wish You Were Here
by moonyNZ
Summary: Hermione is a survivor. She wishes her friends could see her, a decade after she'd lost them.


_**Disclaimer: I have no rights to Harry Potter, or Pink Floyd.**_

**_Not the best, just a little plot bunny that attacked me with certain images when I was listening to my ipod. I only built a small picture, so you get the flashes ;)_**

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Wish You Were Here

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_**So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,  
blue skies from pain.**_

Hermione stood alone on the cliff overlooking Hogwarts lake, a cold wind whipped up her black robes and picked up dust as she looked out over the cool water, as bracken as the skies above it. Her head was hooded, curls covered from the lashing air around her, it fought its way through the distant skeletons of trees and whipped white capped waves across the fetch of the lake, it snuck sneakily into gaps in the castle behind her, howling and screaming, a sound that triggered a flood of sudden, unwanted memories.

"_Harry?!" Hermione called, unable sight her best friend in the chaos surrounding her. All around witches and wizards, young and old, friend and foe fell under the clear blue sky. The spring sun shone brightly, sending sparkles of light dancing across the lake and warming the cold stone walls of the castle behind her. Not an hour before birds were singing, Harry and Ron were joking under the tree by the lake and Hermione was enjoying some reading as they basked in the knowledge they'd finished their schooling. _

_Trembling with adrenaline, Hermione worked on autopilot, curse and charm falling from her thoughts as light flew from her wand tip. The spring scene around her marred by screams of pain, of fear, of anger. She had been separated from Harry and Ron as the battle wore on and had not seen or heard from them since. _

_The green slopes of Hogwarts grounds were swarming with magical folk. Students, Aurors and members of the Order fought, side by side against the dark, the looming mass of evil that had descended on the warm spring day. It had happened when they least expected it. _

_Unable to avoid a red hex aimed in her direction, Hermione gasped in pain as her skin opened, blood running from her wounds and soaking her robes. As pain seared through her, her vision blurred as she recognised a flash of pink hair and the familiar voice of her former professor, as they battled to her left. _

_**Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?  
A smile from a veil?  
**__**Do you think you can tell?**_

Hermione stared resolutely out across the lake as she remembered her friends. Too many had fallen, too many to count, too many to forget. The battle had taken place in Spring, Summer was just around the corner. Nowhere in her knowledge of war had she seen images so contrasting. To her war was muddy and wet under dark and dreary skies, with men drowning in the sinking silty mess they themselves had created. It was full of explosions, fire and death.

Well, at least they got part of it right.

_Blinking, Hermione came to and was greeted with the smell of fresh grass, cracking her eyes open she found she was surrounded by a field of green. Everything was silent and still, like the world itself had died. Gripping her wand, Hermione ignored the pain and stood, as her vision cleared she focused on the world around her, rushing back in a flood of noise and colour. The battle was winding down, numbers on both sides dropping dismally as screams of pain echoed through the air. _

_She turned, wand held aloft after hearing the familiar growl of Remus Lupin. He was standing, wand at his side staring menacingly at the company of Death Eaters down slope from him. His amber eyes flashed, and the wizard in front of her was unrecognisable as he stood over his wife's limp body. _

"_Remus!" Hermione called, dodging a slicing hex that blended with the green grass at her feet. Stepping over still and withering bodies on the ground, Hermione raced to help her friend. _

_She felled a couple of Death Eaters, avoiding their onslaught as three turned their attention to the witch with the curly hair._ _The distraction didn't stop her from her goal, the look in Remus' eyes was inhuman, feral and wild as she moved closer. _

"_Remus." She called, stepping up quickly beside him and pushing him out of the way of a curse. "Why aren't you fighting back?" she asked, her eyes on the advancing Death Eaters._

_Remus didn't reply as he waited for his enemy to get close enough. Growling low he pushed Hermione aside and stepped forward, his wand still held at his side. _

"_No!" Hermione called, regaining her balance, "Fight back Remus!" she yelled, stepping back up to him and casting a shield charm as a __Cruciatus__ curse flew toward him. _

_Blinking, Remus looked down at the witch beside him and his expression softened, he smiled at her before turning back and raising his wand. "I solemnly swear..." he murmured, advancing to be the last Marauder to fall as Hermione stood beside him, helpless in her efforts to save him. _

Hermione shook her head at the distant memories of the past. The two men that Harry had turned to in need; in need of advice, love and family, had both fallen smiling, Marauders to the very end.

_**And did they get you to trade, your heroes for ghosts?  
Hot ashes for trees?  
Hot air for a cool breeze?  
Cold comfort for change?  
And did you exchange, a walk on part in the war, for a lead role in a cage?**_

Hermione blinked, for years nightmares of that day had plagued her, disturbing her in the small quiet hours of the night.

_Hermione ran as fast as she had in her seventeen years, down the hill to the quidditch pitch. She passed Neville on the way, standing over Dean Thomas and looking unsure as what to do next. Spinning Hermione grabbed his hand. _

_"Come on, Neville. Time to help Harry."_

_The pair ran to the edge of the pitch as Ron fell, his tall, lean body slumping to the green earth beneath his feet. _

_"No." Hermione whispered in disbelief, stopping and staring at the scene in front of her. Beside her Neville squeezed her hand. _

_Blinking Hermione couldn't tear her gaze of the young wizard on the field below. _

_"Time to help Harry." Neville said urgently, pulling her along and headfirst into the battle. _

That was her last memory of that day, it was there, somewhere suppressed waiting to resurface. She remembered what came next. As much as she tried, that she could not forget. For a year after the final battle she had resisted and survived. In her cold wet dungeon cell she survived. They couldn't break the last of the Golden Trio, torture, rape and the brutality of evil in its purist form would not stop Hermione from pressing on.

It was a year before someone found her.

_The door creaked open and a flash of activity burst into the room. _

_"In here!" Someone yelled, a familiar voice pulling at memory strands in her brain. _

_"Survivors!" said another. _

_"Harry?" Hermione asked quietly, unable to focus on those in front of her._

_"Merlin's striped pyjamas." The first voice exclaimed at the front of her cell, his wand working frantically to free her. "George! It's Hermione!" _

_Another figure appeared in front of her blurred vision, an identical copy to the blur that already resided there. _

_"Go get Charlie." One instructed, and Hermione heard hurried footsteps, "It's okay Hermione, we're going to get you out."_

_"MOVE!" _

_The blurred figure scampered as her cell door burst open and Hermione felt large hands cup her face._

_"Hermione? Can you hear me? It's Charlie, open your eyes!"_

_Hermione focussed on a set of soft blue eyes, before she felt her head loll at darkness descend. _

When she woke she was on a bed, not solid stone, she was dry, clean and comfortable. They'd explained what had happened, Charlie and the Twins. Millions were dead, muggle and magic folk alike, cities fell and burned, London, a sea of flame and smoke burned still, a year after it was set, it would take another three for it to smoulder and die. It was a month before she saw the blackened sky, forever grey with soot and ash from dying and decaying cities, from charred forests and wooded glades. She joined a small band of wizards and muggles, a resistance against the new world, against tyranny and oppression, fighting for the right to be free.

_**How I wish, how I wish you were here.**_  
_**We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,  
Running over the same old ground.  
What have you found? The same old fears.  
Wish you were here**_.

It had been ten years since Hermione had stood on the sacred Hogwarts grounds, ten years since she'd seen the light in Harry's green eyes, the laughter in Ron's. No longer did childrens eyes light up at seeing the majestic castle for the first time, no magical pranks were pulled, no lessons learned, no destinies fulfilled. The stone was wearing, eroding with time and abandonment, the green grassy fields and the quidditch pitch were dust as the gift of life the sun provided died around them.

The scene was familiar as they'd seen it in every town, in every county as they'd travelled across Great Britain. But here, at her home it was wrong. So wrong. But it was over.

"Hermione?"

Hermione turned to see her constant companion stepping slowly up the dusty bank towards her. His strong solid body leaning into the wind, arms tense and weary as his fingers clasped his wand. The same arms that had gently picked her up from her cold prison a decade ago were capable of acts no one in a civilised world would have imagined.

But the world was no longer civilised, it was harsh and hard, cold and calculating. After ten years of war, of unrelenting battle, Hermione knew that better than anyone. They had lived in a time of war. But they had survived.

They'd begun to arrive six months ago, Hermione, Charlie and the Twins were the first. Seeking shelter in the cold castle as the world rightened itself. Then others had arrived, refugees seeking a place of solace, of safety to start rebuilding their lives.

Charlie Weasley stood beside her, tall and broad, his thick red hair fading with time. Reaching up he grazed his fingers down one of the long scars that traversed the side of her face. Long had she worn a haunted look, eyes void of light as they resisted their oppressors. It had only ever been anger, determination and strength that graced the beauty in front of him, so she couldn't blame him when he looked into her eyes and faltered at the flicker of hope.

"What are you thinking of?" he asked.

He never asked her thoughts, but it fell naturally off his tongue as they stood on ground over a decade after they'd lost it.

"I wish they were here." She said, looking away and staring across the lake, "Not to see all this, the world we now live in. But to see that we survived, that we will survive, that the world will survive. I wish I could see them again. Every day their faces fade just a little bit."

Charlie took her in his arms, "They know Hermione." He said gently as she rested her head on his chest and gazed at the single green sapling sprouting in the middle of the quidditch pitch, "And they'll always be with us, everyone we fought for, everyone we lost. They know Hermione, and we will remember them."


End file.
